On May 31, 2014, Japanese racing was preparing for the Tokyo Yushun, the Japanese Derby. One and Only, Isla Bonita and the leading colts of their generation were already established names. At Kyoto Racecourse that same afternoon, another three-year-old colt was only beginning his career.
Toho Jackal finished tenth in an ordinary maiden race.
He had arrived late because illness had once put his racing career in doubt. His second start brought another defeat, this time on dirt. Yet by October, less than five months after that unremarkable debut, he was standing in the winner's circle after one of Japan's three Classic races.
The interval between debut and victory in the Kikuka Sho was 149 days.
A Son of Special Week Delayed by Illness
Toho Jackal was foaled on March 11, 2011, and bred by Koji Takeshima in Hokkaido. He was a chestnut son of Special Week, winner of the 1998 Japanese Derby and 1999 Japan Cup, out of the American-bred mare Toho Gaia, a daughter of Unbridled's Song.
His pedigree suggested considerable potential. Special Week had already produced top-class horses including Buena Vista and Cesario, while Unbridled's Song brought another major international bloodline through the dam.
Getting Toho Jackal to a racecourse, however, became more important than discussing what his pedigree might eventually produce.
As a two-year-old, he developed serious colitis. Trainer Kiyoshi Tani later explained that the illness had been severe enough to raise doubts over whether the colt would ever become a racehorse. His development was delayed, and he was not entered in the spring Classics.
By the time Toho Jackal finally reached the races, the Satsuki Sho had already been run and the Japanese Derby was one day away.
May 31 to July 12: Three Attempts to Win a Maiden
His debut came over 1,800 meters on turf at Kyoto on May 31. Manabu Sakai rode him, but there was little in the result to suggest that a Classic winner had appeared. Toho Jackal finished tenth of eighteen.
Three weeks later he was switched to 1,800 meters on dirt at Hanshin and finished ninth. After two starts, he had yet to finish in the first half of a field.
The third attempt came at Chukyo on July 12. Back on turf and reunited with Sakai, Toho Jackal dropped to 1,600 meters. This time he won, narrowly defeating Flash Bio.
That maiden victory changed the direction of his summer. On August 3 at Kokura he stepped into an allowance race over 1,800 meters and won again. Less than two months after finishing tenth on debut, he had put together consecutive victories.
His next race showed that he could also compete over more ground. In the 2,000-meter Genkai Tokubetsu at Kokura on September 6, Toho Jackal faced older horses and finished second to A Shin Max.
He still had no graded-stakes victory, no spring Classic experience and very little time if he was going to reach the final Classic of the season.
The Kobe Shimbun Hai: One Chance to Reach Kyoto
The Kobe Shimbun Hai on September 28 was Toho Jackal's first graded race. It was also a direct route into the Kikuka Sho, with the leading finishers earning priority for the final Classic.
The opposition included Japanese Derby winner One and Only and Sounds of Earth. Compared with them, Toho Jackal had spent the spring simply trying to recover sufficiently to begin racing.
At Hanshin, that difference in background did not prevent him from competing with them. One and Only won in 2:24.4, Sounds of Earth finished second, and Toho Jackal was third. The three were separated by no recorded time difference in the official results.
Third place gave Toho Jackal the opportunity he needed. His seventh career start would be the Kikuka Sho over 3,000 meters at Kyoto.
The 2014 Kikuka Sho Field
The final leg of the Japanese Triple Crown was run on October 26. One and Only arrived as the Derby winner and started favorite. To the World, runner-up in the Satsuki Sho, was also among the leading contenders. Toho Jackal was the third betting choice at odds of 6.9.
His inside draw, gate two, allowed Sakai to avoid wasting ground. Rather than taking Toho Jackal far back and relying on one late burst, he kept him within the forward group while the eighteen-horse field travelled around Kyoto's 3,000-meter course.
At the second passage of the fourth corner, Toho Jackal was already close to the leaders. One and Only and To the World were positioned farther outside, while Sounds of Earth had worked into contention on the inside.
Sakai moved before the two spring Classic stars could establish an advantage. Toho Jackal reached the front in the straight and then had to deal with Sounds of Earth, who continued to close along the inside.
The margin at the finish was half a length.
3:01.0
The finishing time immediately gave the race another dimension. Toho Jackal had covered 3,000 meters in 3:01.0.
The previous Kikuka Sho record was Song of Wind's 3:02.7 from 2006. Toho Jackal lowered it by 1.7 seconds. JRA's official review also noted that the performance established the fastest time for 3,000 meters on turf in central Japanese racing, improving on the previous mark associated with Narita Top Road.
Sounds of Earth finished second in 3:01.1, with Gold Actor third in 3:01.7. One and Only was ninth and To the World sixteenth.
For Toho Jackal, the race completed an extraordinarily compressed sequence. He had debuted on May 31 and won the Kikuka Sho on October 26, a span of 149 days. JRA recorded it as the shortest period from debut to Kikuka Sho victory since two-year-old racing had been introduced.
It was also the first graded-stakes victory of his career.
Sakai earned his first JRA G1 victory, and trainer Kiyoshi Tani also celebrated his first G1 success. The colt who had not even been part of the spring Classic campaign had won the last Classic of the year.
Why the 149 Days Mattered
The speed of Toho Jackal's progress becomes clearer when his first seven races are placed together. He began with tenth and ninth-place finishes, won his maiden on July 12, added an allowance victory on August 3, finished second against older horses in September, earned his Kikuka Sho place by finishing third in the Kobe Shimbun Hai, and then defeated the Classic generation at Kyoto.
There was no long juvenile campaign behind him and no gradual route through the traditional spring trials. His entire racing education had been compressed into the summer and early autumn of his three-year-old season.
The Kikuka Sho was also the only graded race Toho Jackal would ever win. That fact was impossible to know in October 2014. With a record-breaking Classic victory in only his seventh start, there was every reason to expect that the season had introduced a major new force in Japanese racing.
Eight Months Before His Next Race
Toho Jackal did not race again in 2014. His return came in the Takarazuka Kinen at Hanshin on June 28, 2015, eight months after the Kikuka Sho.
The field included Gold Ship, Lovely Day, Lachesis and other established older horses. Lovely Day won, while Toho Jackal finished fourth, only 0.3 seconds behind the winner.
It was a respectable return after the long absence, but it did not lead to another victory. In August he started favorite in the Sapporo Kinen and finished eighth behind Decipher.
Those two starts constituted his entire four-year-old season.
Four Starts in 2016
Toho Jackal returned the following March in the Hanshin Daishoten, another 3,000-meter race. He finished seventh behind Cheval Grand before producing his best performance of the year in the Tenno Sho (Spring).
The 3,200-meter G1 at Kyoto was won by Kitasan Black after a close finish with Curren Mirotic. Toho Jackal finished fifth, 0.3 seconds behind the winner.
His remaining starts were less successful. He was fifteenth in the Takarazuka Kinen and, following another break caused by a leg problem, returned in December for the Kinko Sho at Chukyo. He finished eleventh.
That became the final race of his career.
Retirement After 13 Starts
In January 2017, it was announced that Toho Jackal had developed tendonitis in his right foreleg. The decision was made to retire him rather than attempt another comeback.
His complete racing record was 13 starts, three wins, one second and one third, with earnings of 213.28 million yen. All three victories came during the five-month surge of 2014: his maiden, an allowance race at Kokura and the Kikuka Sho.
That unusual distribution makes his career easy to divide. The first seven starts carried him from an unsuccessful late debut to a Classic victory. The next six, spread across more than two years, produced several competitive G1 performances but no further wins.
Toho Jackal at Stud
Toho Jackal entered stud in 2017. His first crop reached racing age in 2020.
His stallion career has been modest in scale. As of 2026, JBIS lists 30 registered offspring in Japan, with 26 starters and 18 winners. No stakes winner has yet emerged from the group. Among his better runners are Toho Dias and Toho la Vie en, both winners on the JRA circuit.
He nevertheless remains an active stallion. JBIS lists him at Crack Stable in Niikappu, Hokkaido, with a 2026 breeding fee of 300,000 yen payable after a live foal.
Through his sire, he also represents one of the remaining direct branches of Special Week. That line includes some of the most internationally familiar Japanese racehorses of the era: Special Week himself won the Japanese Derby and Japan Cup, while his offspring included Buena Vista, Cesario and Toho Jackal.
A Classic Campaign That Began After the Derby
The calendar provides the simplest way to understand Toho Jackal's 2014 season. When One and Only won the Japanese Derby on June 1, Toho Jackal had raced once and finished tenth. When the same two horses met in the Kobe Shimbun Hai in late September, only a fraction separated them. Four weeks later, One and Only started favorite in the Kikuka Sho while Toho Jackal defeated the field in record time.
His later career never developed into the sustained G1 campaign that the result seemed to promise. Injury and interrupted preparation limited him to six more starts, and the Kikuka Sho remained both his greatest victory and his only graded-stakes win.
The official record from October 26, 2014, is therefore unusually concentrated: seventh career start, 149 days after debut, 3,000 meters in 3:01.0, half a length ahead of Sounds of Earth.
Five months earlier, Toho Jackal had still been trying to finish his first race. By the end of October, his name was on the list of Japanese Classic winners.
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